Layered
by FullMentalPanic
Summary: There was always a little something extra.


**Layered**

The brush pulled at the rippling tangles in her hair, and Rem flicked a clump of bangs out of her eyes as she regarded herself in the mirror. Today might be the day.

Black shoes? Check. Two long, black, not white, socks? She gave a decisive glance to the socks draped over her desk, check.

Wait.

She winced and whined internally, socks first _then_ shoes. Grabbing the stockings, she hopped and kicked both shoes off. They would only come off _that_ easily if she had forgotten to buckle them. She hadn't gotten quite fast enough to do it in one go, but a couple of compact jumps later, she had first one and then two socks on her feet.

Her heels clicked to the floor as she stepped into her shoes and started to check off the next sequence of her uniform, before her eyes dashed back to her mirror. No, she always did this! Finish the first task and _then_ she could move on to the next one.

Grabbing up her brush she whipped it through the next tangle. She could finish her hair and then make sure she was military pressed and ready. Her hand froze in midstroke. If she wasn't completely dressed before she finished her hair, it would just get mussed up when she pulled her uniform jacket over her head.

She looked down. Her undershirt was on but the jacket still hung over the back of her chair. She took the opportunity to make sure she was wearing her red plaid skirt and pulled on the jacket, squirming past the buttons as the cloth stretched and slid. Poofing her hair out of the collar she picked up her brush.

If she brushed her hair now she would get loose strands and maybe even _dandruff_ all over her uniform. Then she would have to wear her alternate. White socks, blue plaid, brown shoes -

She breathed in through her nose as anxiety began to build in her stomach and she tried to keep the emotion out of her face and body language. She could just get in and out of this jacket by buttoning and unbuttoning so she wouldn't have to pull it over her head, but she could never match the buttons properly in anything less than four tries.

She looked at the clock. She was short on time, and she couldn't remember if she had sharpened her daggers yet. Her eyes darted to where her weapons lay parallel to one another in front of her mirror, and she snatched them both in one hand. She only just remembered her instructor's warning to never test your blade on your own skin as she shifted the knives for the next available object. Tossing her brush in the hair she slashed and felt an easing of relief as three pieces of wood and bristle fell to the floor.

Wait.

Rem exhaled through her nose. This always happened. She would fly through drills, feverishly review all of the possibilities of attack and defense, and then rush to implement all of them as soon as there was an opportunity. Strike first, raise your weapons to defend, block to the side, protect your stomach, keep moving, attack from unexpected angles, keep your feet off the ground. Every option she'd ever had presented to her and was capable of she would strive to cram into a single battle. Attack from the air, flip and attack from upside down, hold your breath and blink behind them, retreat before they could counterattack.

Her blades would whirl furiously, she would turn and dip through the air using her strikes to turn and support herself. She would seize that ability only a few of them had and breathe into airless dark space before springing out of it again before her opponent was aware she'd emerged behind them. She would jump back, and her opponent would be flustered and gawking, but almost always only have shallow wounds in non-vital areas. That was only if it was an opponent cognizant enough to experience unease at whirling, slashing knives. She'd been batted or struck right out of her routine if her opponent was determined or tough enough not to be cowed by her imprecise strikes. Fast reaction time could only get you so far when there wasn't a plan behind it.

Rem had other brushes. She laid aside her weapons and found another hairbrush in the second drawer she sorted through. She held herself still for a full five seconds and then bent forward at the waist and let her head hang down so anything she brushed out of her hair would just land on the floor.

She stayed that way, blood rushing to her head, hopefully steadying her brain, until the brush pulled through smoothly. She flipped her hair back as she straightened and noted that she _had_ remembered to plug in her hair iron. With reestablished confidence she worked the device though her hair. Today might be the day.

BUMPH

"Rem, time to go."

She froze as her partner's voice came immediately after his decisive pound on her door. He had stopped asking if she was ready the first week they'd started working together.

"Now?" she drew out pleadingly.

"Yes." The sound of Machina's steps moving away came clearly through the door. He'd started doing that the second week they'd been working together.

Nothing for it, Rem smoothed the top of her hair over the wavier ends, and picked up her daggers as she hastened toward her doorway.

It wasn't today, but sometime she was going to finish straightening all of her hair before she had to leave.

* * *

A/N: Before Agito actually got released in the US I had this ambition to write on the characters based completely on what I could figure out from the Japanese demo. Now that we've actually got the for real deal in our country, such a project is kind of obsolete, but I wanted to finish it anyway. Rem's hair always looked halfway styled to me, and though her fighting style is very acrobatic and fast it's not very hard hitting. Fighting style can say a lot about personality, so this is what I pieced together from just the demo.


End file.
